January 2016

Samsung is ready to show off some new Galaxy phones again, and it’s also becoming overwhelmingly clear that the company believes virtual reality is a key to its future mobile strategy. Samsung just…

I can barely keep up with the amount of new venture capital sloshing around Europe, as new funds are closed. And, if my sources are correct, we aren’t done yet.…

With a growing middle class rising up across its population of more than 600 million people, Southeast Asia is truly a growth market. Added to that, the influx of mobile…

Uber is hoping to squeeze more money from users in China after it announced a tie-in with Alibaba’s Alipay that will enable Uber China customers to pay their bill using…

KFit, a nine-month-old service offering gym and healthcare services in the style of $400 million-valued ClassPass in the U.S., has announced that it closed a $12 million Series A funding…

From George Orwell predicting the overwhelming reach of television in 1984 to the video phone calls in Back to the Future, it seems that technology often imitates pop culture. Nowhere…

It’s been a tough week for United Launch Alliance (ULA). A hearing last Wednesday brought news of a potential ban on Russian made RD-180 engines which ULA requires for their…

Africa is on the verge of something big. This seems to be a quiet, cautious consensus in some investment communities. The past year has been peppered with stories of tech…

As Uber continues to raise ever more funding to drive its on-demand transportation app into more categories and countries, one of its smaller, regional cab-hailing rivals is quietly expanding into its own…

Well, that’s one way to respond when someone doesn’t like your startup. After a Stanford student spotted an internship opening at The League, they declared that they were “totally and utterly ashamed that this…

The last 5-10 years have been an extraordinary time for early stage tech founders to raise money. But easy access to capital has ingrained some bad habits among founders. There…

Oh my god. Uber has finally done it. They’ve made my dreams come true. Uber wants you to “paws whatever you’re doing,” because in honor of this week’s Puppy Bowl,…

What’s going on in technology investing right now? Is this another 2001, when tech imploded? Another 2008, when the wider world crashed but tech powered through? Or is it like…

As is clear from the front pages of newspapers recently, we are living in a world where open democratic values are under attack. Paris, Bamako, San Bernardino, Jakarta and Ouagadougou…

I’m taking a last look around the room. It’s five in the morning and the black car is idling outside. The driver has already called me and I quietly whispered…

Wherever you turn, businesses are facing tremendous disruptive pressure. What’s interesting is that the theory about how firms should be dealing with this massive change is itself in flux, transforming if you…

There are too many headlines and articles about bubbles, market crashes, negative interest rates and venture-backed unicorns. Why write one more? Because I believe there is a much more pragmatic…

I’m old enough that when someone says Sidecar, I immediately think of Cointreau, lemon juice and cognac, shaken and served up. What’s remarkable to me is that the folks at…

Onfleet, the company that provides infrastructure for on-demand delivery, recently powered its one millionth delivery. More than half of those deliveries occurred within the last four months, Onfleet CEO Khaled…

Sci-fi tech, meet Wall Street. A recent report from Goldman Sachs predicted that within 10 years, virtual reality hardware will be an $80 billion industry. This “base case” forecast assumed…

Where are all the people of color in engineering roles at tech companies? Berkeley, Calif.-based coding bootcamp Telegraph Academy, which plans to relocate to Oakland in the next few months,…

This month, the China National Space Administration released all of the images from their recent moon landing to the public. There are now hundreds and hundreds of never-before-seen true color, high…

The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, January 29, 2016. The Gang discusses Facebook sharecropping as Parse joins FriendFeed on the…

President Barack Obama has called for more than $4 billion in funding for states, and $100 million specifically for districts in order make sure every K-12 student has access to…

Sony Pictures. Ashley Madison. Twitch. Patreon. Snapchat. LinkedIn. Last.fm… Those are just a handful of the companies that have suffered massive password-related breaches in recent years. Bulk password theft is…

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago–never mind how long precisely–having nothing particular to interest me in meatspace, I thought to visit the Vale of Silicon. It is a way I…

P2P lending became one of the hottest industries in fintech — or any other any industry — in 2015. Companies raised large venture rounds, investors found unicorns and there were…

The 9th Annual Crunchies are almost upon us. On February 8, luminaries from some of the best and brightest startups around will descend upon San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House…

With a January 31 deadline looming and the Judicial Redress Act languishing in the Senate, it is imperative for Congress to act quickly to take an important step in finding…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks shares of his motor company are headed upward. That’s the apparent message reporters received this afternoon from Tesla’s PR machine, which sent out an alert…